John Oliver had a deadly serious point behind his hilarious skewering of Fox News propaganda that is undermining the Russia investigation: It may be as bogus as O.J. Simpson’s defense but it's looking equally effective.

Last month, I noted that polling showed that the Trump/Fox News propaganda war on the Russia investigation was “successfully undermining our U.S. justice system in the minds of a large section of Americans, taking facts and truth down the dark hole with them, and making this country more vulnerable to Russian meddling.” Thank goodness, John Oliver took this ball and ran with it in his most recent Last Week Tonight show:

OLIVER: The question, did a hostile foreign government try to manipulate our election, is something any reasonable person should want answered quickly and yet an increasing number of Americans seem to want the investigation to stop. Last July, support for investigation stood at 62%. But a recent poll found it’s now down to just 54% and that is troubling because remember: Trump has actually considered shutting the investigation down before and if that number keeps dropping he may well feel empowered to try and actually do it.

Oliver went on to stress how important it is for people to know what Fox is up to (which happens to be the mission of this blog). In relation to the Mueller investigation, though, Oliver meant that if Trump is found to have done something wrong or illegal, he will be tried in Congress via impeachment, not in a court. In other words, “public opinion is key.” Thus, swaying public opinion, not informing viewers, is Fox’s goal in its “coverage” of the Russia investigation.

Oliver explored the three techniques that Fox has been using to (successfully) influence public opinion. First, the Trump allies are “attempting to redefine the investigation on their terms.” Fox pundits complain that since no collusion between Russia and Trump has been found, the investigation should be ended.

But Oliver noted that Mueller’s mission was not to find collusion. “The word collusion doesn’t even appear in his appointment letter,” Oliver said. “In actuality, he was tasked with looking into links and coordination between the Russian government and anyone associated with the Trump campaign as well as any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

The third tactic is building a counter-narrative that paints the investigation as part of some grand conspiracy to bring down Trump.

Once again Hannity was the star. And I’ll just go ahead and predict that after watching this video, you’ll never hear Hannity talk about a Snickers bar again without thinking of Oliver’s lampooning.

We even saw a clip of Hannity admitting, as Oliver put it, that he’s “proof proof.” Meaning that even if there is evidence of Trump collusion, Hannity has already vowed not to believe it: “Mueller, if you got it come on the show and tell America - and by the way if the media - if you have more proof that this is not a witch hunt, okay I don’t believe you,” we saw Hannity saying.

“All this can make it easy to forget just how bad what we actually do know already is,” Oliver continued. He cited the 2016 Trump Tower meeting Donald Trump Jr. set up with a Russian attorney who promised to provide dirt on Hillary Clinton. We know this, not because of Mueller or the so-called “Deep State” but “because Don Jr. tweeted out the emails setting up the meeting ahead of a newspaper publishing them.” We saw Hannity’s shameless spin on that, too (he suggested it was Hillary Clinton’s doing).

As “transparent, illogical and dumb” Trump TV’s efforts may be, “the other thing they definitely are is depressingly effective,” Oliver said. He had footage of focus group participants echoing the rhetoric to prove it.

Then he got to the O.J. parallels:

OLIVER: Think about it: A sociopathic misogynist millionaire evolved from celebrity to undeserving folk hero suddenly has evidence piling up that he may have done something terrible and he puts the whole system on trial. … [I]t’s basically the story of O.J. all over again. Trump is going full O.J. and it’s working.

Even if Mueller comes back with irrefutable evidence, Trump could just pardon himself and put out a book called if I did it and a very large portion of the country would buy it.

We know for sure that Hannity would.

Left unsaid? As awful as O.J. Simpson’s behavior was, it only harmed a relatively small number of people. Trump’s misdeeds have the potential of harming millions, assuming they haven't already.

Watch this important and funny analysis of Fox News’ stratagem below, from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, published on YouTube June 10, 2018.

Showing 2 reactions

I just found this on how we should deal with all the info we are bombarded with or exposed to:

“In order to make sense of this explosion of information you need to be able to tell the difference between wisdom and sophistry, between timely words of warning and interest-driven scaremongering. That power of analysis is what’s called critical thinking. It is defined by the Critical Thinking Community as the ability to check for ‘clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and fairness’, to build knowledge from a range of sources, including your own experience.”

Those who are exposed to what’s spewed out by Fox News should take this advice to heart.